{"id":845177,"date":"2025-02-12T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=845177"},"modified":"2025-02-10T14:10:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T20:10:50","slug":"whats-next-the-best-question-to-ask-regarding-guests-at-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/whats-next-the-best-question-to-ask-regarding-guests-at-church\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Next?! The Best Question to Ask Regarding Guests At Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hopefully, you will meet new people this week. One of the marks of a healthy church is a steady stream of new attendees. They might have come for any kind of reason\u2014an outreach initiative, a special service or time of the year, or maybe just an invitation from a church member. Whatever the cause, they are there. And once they are, there is one, key question you should ask:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What happens next?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most churches have some kind of answer to that question, but generally, the answer involves actions taken by the church toward the guests. What happens next? There might be a gift bag. Or a phone call from a member of the church staff. Or even a personal visit or invitation to coffee. These are all good things, but think about the question from the opposite direction:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What should a person who visits your church do next?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another way to say it might be: what prescribed next step will we offer to someone who is visiting? This is an important question to answer because if there is nothing for that person to do\u2013no action for them to take\u2013then chances are they will hang around on the periphery of the congregation and then eventually move on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For visitors to become contributing members of a local congregation, they need to be involved as quickly<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as possible in the life of the church. The problem is that every single person who visits a church is different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have different spiritual backgrounds, different understandings of who God is and what church should be about, and different life experiences that have shaped their understanding of faith. All of those differences make it complicated to involve people effectively. And yet the answer to that \u201cnext step\u201d question is one of the things that separates churches that have steady and sustainable growth from those that do not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what happens next?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For some churches, this is a membership class in which people come to understand the core doctrines of the church, the philosophy and vision of ministry, and how they can become involved. But what many such classes lack is the personal relational connection with other church members.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Other churches push new people immediately to a small group in which they can experience life connection with others. But what that next step often lacks is the emphasis on doctrine and church vision found in membership classes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ideally, the next step has both. It is a \u201clevel-setting\u201d experience in which people learn the truth of the gospel and the other core doctrines, while at the same time connecting deeply with other people. In such an experience, people come out on the other side not only understanding who the church is and what spiritual development looks like there, but also with a depth of relationship that serves as the glue to keep them in the congregation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perhaps one of the reasons you might not be seeing sustained growth is the lack of such an experience. If that\u2019s true, then it\u2019s time to rethink your answer to the question, \u201cWhat happens next?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rooted Network can help meet this need. Hundreds of churches are understanding how the Rooted experience can not only help people understand the core Christian doctrines but also connect them deeply into the life of the church. To find out more, <\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/experiencerooted.com\/churchanswers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">visit <\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">experiencerooted.com\/churchanswers<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hopefully, you will meet new people this week. One of the marks of a healthy church is a steady stream of new attendees. They might have come for any kind of reason\u2014an outreach initiative, a special service or time of the year, or maybe just an invitation from a church member. Whatever the cause, they&#8230;","protected":false},"author":18832,"featured_media":845179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,1,183,184,182,179,175,192,177,178,14796,180,194,185],"tags":[20211,20212,20214,20213,20210],"class_list":["post-845177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administration-and-finance","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-discipleship","category-facilities","category-first-impressions","category-grow","category-how-to","category-lead","category-membership-and-assimilation","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-preaching","category-worship","tag-guests-at-church","tag-membership-class","tag-michael-kelley","tag-rooted-network","tag-the-best-question-to-ask-regarding-guests-at-church"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What\u2019s Next?! 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